Shooting 4K with the Galaxy S5

One of the coolest features built into the new Samsung Galaxy S5 is the ability to shoot video in 4K. Despite 4K being the Next Big Thing very few people have 4K computer monitors — let alone 4K televisions — but 2014’s hottest Android phone is able to capture video at a resolution of 3840 x 2160. This is what’s called 4K UHD or 2160p video, and it’s a bit unwieldy for now but it’ll future-proof those magic moments that you record, so long as you have space to store them all.

If you’re wondering how to shoot 4K with the Galaxy S5, don’t worry, it’s easy. You simply need to go into the Camera app, hit the gear symbol at the top left (Settings), and then go to Video Size. That’s the left most box in the third row. The options you’ll have at this point at 640 x 480, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080, and 3840 x 2160. Each of these are 16:9 aside from the smallest, which is 4:3.

At this point the GS5 will kick you a warning, but it’s very minor. The phone just wants you to note that if you are shooting in UHD then you can’t use Dual Camera Mode, HDR, video effects, or remote viewfinder, nor can you take pictures while recording video. Not a huge deal.

When shooting in 4K the Galaxy S5 has a 5 minute limit so you won’t be shooting any feature-length films with it. Expect to use about 350MB per minute with UHD video recording.

After that it’s just a matter of hitting the record button, just like you would with any other phone or video. You’ll get something like this:

Or perhaps…

The first clip came off the smartphone as a 101MB file while the second one was 89MB. Those aren’t especially large files, but considering how short the clips are, you can imagine how the file sizes will build up as you keep recording.

Each clip, once uploaded to YouTube will play back at not just 720p and 1080p, but 1440p and 2160p. Most displays will not be able to take advantage of the extra resolution but you’ll at least be able to make sure you’re not losing any video data as you upload (aside from that due to scaling and compression). Of course, the GS5 has a 1920 x 1080 resolution so you won’t be able to view the native video there either, but it still looks quite good on the phone’s excellent 432 ppi AMOLED display.

Finally, here is a full resolution image taken with the Galaxy S5. It’s 9.9MB and 5312 x 2988. Obviously shooting video is considerably different from capturing a still image, but this’ll give you some idea of the sharpness and color available through the GS5’s 16MP sensor.

Long story short, the Galaxy S5 has some serious imaging capabilities. Most of us don’t need 4K video right now, just as we don’t need 16MP images clogging up our phones’ limited storage, but it’s a great feature to have available and one that gives us some insight into just how powerful the GS5 is.